Book excerpt: The 1ast American Cookie Lady is based on the 76-page cookie diary of Anna Cookie Covington, which contains 208 delicious recipes from a WWI-era American kitchen. Anna's journal, kept between 1917 and 1920, predates the first cookie recipe books published in the 1920s and just might be the first American collection of cookie recipes. Even though Barbara presents these recipes exactly as they appear in the original diary, she also shares helpful tips and hints on baking, updates for many of the recipes, fun cookie poems, baking superstitions, and dozens of photos and illustrations.